The Other Side Of Me

Hello everyone!  It's still a bit nippy, isn't it?  We've had snow all day.  I've been on a course in Nottingham and was worried about getting home, but we've made it. The good thing was, we had a late start so I had a chance to photograph the Valentine card I've made for John while he was out of the house! The other blog challenge I want to keep up with this year is the Cards For Men challenge .  This is challenge no. 3 and they want to see Valentine, Anniversary cards etc, so here is my entry: So many cards on the internet are pink, aren't they?  But as most cards are made by women to give to the important man in their lives, I just wondered if there ought to be more of a focus on masculine cards.  I've seen a few cards like this though, and love this kind of design and just had to have a go. The base is kraft card, followed by very vanilla, which I distressed with Tim Holtz old paper ink and went round the edges with some soft suede ink, befor...

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I was surprised to find a big box of chocolates and a cake waiting for me in the kitchen when I got up this morning.  We don't officially 'do' valentines, preferring to celebrate our wedding anniversary instead, but this year, I seem to have gone all out on it. This is how my kitchen dresser looks at the moment: I've had a bit of a splurge and put all of my 'love' things together.  It makes me smile to see all of these things together, in red, white, pink and cream.  I did want to make a few more things for my display, but apart from the card heart (hanging down on the left) I really haven't had the time. But I do have a little valentine card to show you: I thoroughly enjoyed making this card.  My sweet little Forever Friends bear had to come out and be coloured in.  The heart behind him is cut with a Nellie Snellen die.  The paper is actually last year's from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine, but it's stil...

Hello all! Hope you're well and not too cold.  Thankfully we haven't had any snow yet.  I think because it was so bad last year all my horsey friends are dreading it, but so far, it's just really cold, which I can live with (indoors, hot choc, card making, you get the idea!) And so it's time for today's card. Do you remember a couple of week's ago I splashed out and bought my first Martha Stewart punch?  This was my first go with it, to make the heart shaped border along the bottom. I have a thing about apertures so thoroughly enjoyed making this.  The card base is Cherry Cobbler. I stamped my letter stamp on the top sheet, which is Very Vanilla, then cut the heart shape out.  I drew inside it onto the CC base, so I could see where I had to stamp.  The floral stamp is actually heart shaped anyway (from Penny Black) which I stamped in gold ink and heat embossed with gold ep.  I added CC polka dot ribbon around the top sheet, then stuc...

I've been asked to make a Valentine for a friend of mine. And this is what I made: Sadly I can't claim this was my idea, I've cased it from the awesome Darlene here .  She has even provided a video tutorial, so you can follow it step by step.  I started with a plain white 5x7 card which I distressed with Tim Holtz Old Paper distress ink, then stamped over it in Crumb Cake with my Letter stamp from Penny Black which is quite a big background stamp.  I also have a post mark stamp so I stamped that on a couple of times.  Then I made the envelope from a 4" square of paper, which I scored across each centre line and folded to make the envelope, which is slightly different to the way you'll see in the video. The hearts are cut out using various dies and punches in Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze and So Saffron, and placed around the envelope, as if you've just opened it and all these hearts have flown out.  I spent a long time playing with these until I was...

I have been busy making Valentine cards, and I'm really enjoying it.  Here's the first one: The colour for the card and the pink heart is SU Regal Rose.  It's such a beautiful colour.  I did see a video on You Tube for how to make this, and now I can't find it, but I'll credit it as soon as I can. I've made a tag (oh for a die to do this, instead of drawing round a template every time) and brushed round the edges with Regal Rose ink.  The paper is just some from my stash that I've had for ages, but it matched perfectly with the card, so I've popped that on top of the main card stock, but with a scalloped border in the same pink.  I've popped the tag on, after adding a bow and some buttons, then added the hearts. The large one has been cut out with my Nellie Snellen hearts die, stamped with my Penny Black heart stamp, sponged over the whole thing with Versamark (glue) ink, sprinkled with clear embossing powder and heated.  This is propped up on st...

And this, my friends, is what having a Sizzix Bigshot is all about! I bought this stamped image last year and used it for hubby's anniversary card, so it's lovely to bring it out again this year for Valentine's Day. It's smaller than I remember it, but very sweet. I painted this last year on normal card using water colour paints which makes the card wrinkle, but this year I used Promarkers, which are a massive improvement. I love using their pastel yellow, and maybe a bit of blush for bears. Hope you like it. I used: Papers: Basic Grey Lemonade Die Cuts: Nellie Snellen ovals Promarkers: bear - pastel yellow, rose - dusky pink and pastel pink Sentiment: freebie with a magazine last year. Thanks for dropping by, Mrs O.